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[Balor]

Also, I dont get why someone would try to make a Real time with Pause JA because JA as a name probably isnt that strong on the sales, the main people looking to the JA sequels are the fans of the original, might as well appeal to them or they're appealing to nobody.

Good point, I've already noted that above.
As for 'reactive pause crap'... well, duh. If you don't get it - fine, you just don't want to understand it.
Pure strategics?
Care to describe it less 'idealised' terms, sir? Like, in detail?
No, chess analogy WILL NOT do. See above.

 

[feta]

Someone please explain to me if there's a friggin difference of RTwP vs clean RT?
So what? you can issue orders when hitting pause, hooray?

In RT you transfer some of the abilities the character should have up to the player. Yes, I am referring to hitting pause.
If you ever wanna have a good command of the battle you need to hit pause every sec.
Also you loose information such as at what timeframe of a characters action are you looking at.
Will I manage to shoot before that guy runs off my field of view or should I switch targets? You will never know.

I do not understand all this massive bastardization of combat games with this "smart pause" intended for "stupid audiences".
Just SAY it's god damn RT, don't gimme that bethesda-style PR crap.
And untill I get to see E5, all "oooh it's magical" kiss-ass reporter trolls can talk all they want. It's crap untill it's confirmed possible by my own eyes.

Jeez, I don't wanna be a friggin nervours wreck reloading 500 times because I didn't hit the damn space button fast enough. I wanna take my time and think over it. Count every single movement point and calculate all possible risks.

Only a retard would run through a door expending all his points upon passing the door entrance.

 

[Human Shield]

I treat it as an abstraction that, essentially, results in time being frozen for the duration. And it SUK! You like it? Fine. I don't. It's illogical and stupid.
I guess it's fine at the Codex to dislike things that are illogical and stupid?

Its illogical and stupid in your opinion, that's fine but how does it lead to more complexity and gameplay?

How many pauses do you have to go through for complex maneuvers?

Depends on how complex. You can press Z and plan your actions beforehand (like shoot two times, duck, reload, run away), for example. (So, it really takes one pause) Or use alt+left click to 'shoot till death' (or when enemy will get out of sight).

But the enemy is moving during that time. Foward planning is limited.

Discrete time units leads to more focused decision making and more foward planning.

In RT you don't think about what the enemy will do as much. If they pull something you can run away as fast as you can, which may be realistic but leads to less thinking.

Thinking how to best use a limited supply of AP will always have more decision power then herding people around in RT.

And is this Brigade E5 game in English at all?

 

[Fresh]

This tb vs rtwp argument is TEH OLD!

Balor tell your russkie friends to release the game worldwide so we can play the game already.

 

[Balor]

In RT you transfer some of the abilities the character should have up to the player. Yes, I am referring to hitting pause.

Eat shit and die, noob. Or, alternatively, do some reseach on SMART pause system. Namely, why it's called "SMART", not "STUPID".

And is this Brigade E5 game in English at all?

You can d/l a Russian demo, and apply a patch to it that makes it English. Translation is not perfect, but heck - it's a demo. Look for it in E5 thread.

 

[Section8]

Oh, and where you saw me advocating that all games should involve SPM, huh? I'm trying to say that diversity should be promoted, expecially since it's kind of diversity I (and not only I) like.

Well, it's implied, because you said, and continue to say it's better than TB:

Well, anyway, it all depends on many factors. I'm not against TB - yet I see it's flaws, and SPM is better at many things.

Now why would someone intentionally hobble their game by implementing a clearly inferior feature? That's the same line of bullshit reasoning that led to so many retarded games doing away with TB in order to implement RT systems that are a mere shadow of E5's system. Someone got the idea that RTwP is inherently better than TB, which it isn't.

Someone please explain to me if there's a friggin difference of RTwP vs clean RT?

Well generally, purely RT games offer a challenge to reflexes and can be quite fun as a result of that. Adding a pause gets rid of that reflex challenge, but it's pretty rare for a developer to add in a more intellectual challenge to make up for it.

 

[feta]

In RT you transfer some of the abilities the character should have up to the player. Yes, I am referring to hitting pause.

Eat shit and die, noob. Or, alternatively, do some reseach on SMART pause system. Namely, why it's called "SMART", not "STUPID".

Really dear master, is the system that SMART that it autopauses when a hostile changes behaviour? (like from retreating back to attacking you).
So it pauses when you first see an enemy, hoo-fucking-ray!

You are only too quick to impose your greatness on the menial little nubs in this forum. We sincerely kiss your ass and beg for forgiveness.

 

[Balor]

Really dear master, is the system that SMART that it autopauses when a hostile changes behaviour? (like from retreating back to attacking you).

It does. There are 'under fire' or 'grenade noticed' triggers that can be (or not, depends on your play style) set to pause the game, select the character responcible, and/or center camera on the event.
Of course, you cannot cover EVERY situaion, but most important (like, life-threatening) - are covered, indeed.
And besides, it's even more realistic this way - your characters are not omnipotent, they cannot notice everthing while concentrating on one task.

 

[Vidder]

just try ufo: aftershock and be converted.

 

[Balor]

Well, yea, I heard that UFO is nice in that respect, but all that played both admit that E5 has greater variety in tactics and, generally, more options in combat.

 

[obediah]

Well generally, purely RT games offer a challenge to reflexes and can be quite fun as a result of that. Adding a pause gets rid of that reflex challenge, but it's pretty rare for a developer to add in a more intellectual challenge to make up for it.

I think we're entirely focused on those rare cases. I don't think anyone is saying that the RTwP akshun in BG or IWD has more tactical depth and accuracy than JA2. On the otherhand, saying that RTwP doesn't offer tactical depth or accuracy based on playing BG or FF is purely ignorance. Judge Aftershock on Aftershock, and Brigade EP53T on Brigade EP53T (if they ever translate it, or you can be bothered to patch the demo) - you may still not like them, but you should have more respect for the potetial of RTwP.

One other thing, at leat with Aftershock, the reflex challenge isn't completely gone. I had problems with auto-pause sometimes, where my attempt to pause would overlap an auto-pause and then leave me unpaused. The pausing and unpausing is kind of slow, so I'd get all flustered and mash space bar and end up wasting the first few seconds of the encounter going in and out of pause. Not sure if this happens to other people, or just my own special bit of retardedness.

 

[Balor]

obediah
In E5, you have two extra keys for it:
Pause only, and Unpause only.
You may always remap Space to 'pause only', and 'V' for 'pause/unpause', for instance .

 

[obediah]

obediah
In E5, you have two extra keys for it:
Pause only, and Unpause only.
You may always remap Space to 'pause only', and 'V' for 'pause/unpause', for instance .

Cool. Good to know I'm not the only clumsy old clusterfuck playing these fancy new games. If E5 is ever translated, I'll buy it. My personal preference is still TB, but they've done too many things right to not pick it up. RT variants are here to stay, so it's good to see some companies focusing on tactical depth vs uber micro.

 

[Balor]

My personal preference is still TB, but they've done too many things right to not pick it up. RT variants are here to stay, so it's good to see some companies focusing on tactical depth vs uber micro.

There is wisdom in your words, Jedi Knight .

 

[Jinxed]

Well, yea, I heard that UFO is nice in that respect, but all that played both admit that E5 has greater variety in tactics and, generally, more options in combat.

Combat sucked balls in Aftershock.

If I wanted to talk about that game in a positive manner I would avoid talking about the combat.

 

[obediah]

Well, yea, I heard that UFO is nice in that respect, but all that played both admit that E5 has greater variety in tactics and, generally, more options in combat.

Combat sucked balls in Aftershock.

Probably because your tactical skills are as well developed as your criticism skills.

Care to list your specific complains about combat? Also the things it got right, or at least better than previous games?

Besides interface and engine frustrations, I felt pretty good about the way tactics "felt" in the game.

For example, moving a team across a field of cover seemed pretty realistic. Highlighting them, selecting run, and clicking on the other side of the field was a great way to get pwned. Staggering your advances, taking cover, and having people kneeling and ready to fire on opponents all felt authentic. When an alien appeared, have the running character drop or take the nearest cover and have your readied people open fire. Personally, I found it very cool as a simulation, but too tedious as a game. It says something that my complaints were that combat was too tediuos rather than too dumbed down.

I encountered several other situations that were much more immersive in the RTwP engine than they would have been in TB. The different timings for reading, firing, reloading weapons was a nice touch. The different firing modes and aiming times are also nice. You have the standard, "I've positioned my troops well, and can take the time to use fewer, better placed bullets to bring down the enemy", and "oh shit where did he come from, put as many bullets in there air as possible NOW."

There's also some viceral joy. Having an alien wander around a corner where you have a guy kneeling with a semi-auto shotgun on alert is a fun time. Also getting a guy with those two of those bad ass machine-pistol/smg guns is pretty special. Not surprisingly tactical depth takes a backseat to character and equpiment upgrades at some point. Whether this is good or bad depends on your tastes.

 

[Balor]

@ Jinxed
I said I HEARD (like, from Slaughter) then combat in Aftershock is rather good, definetely an improvement from previous game. *shrugs*
Of course, it's not TB, so it cannot be any good, right?

 

[LlamaGod]

it's not as good as the original x-com

 

[Micmu]

Does the new afterwhatever even have fighter/transport aircrafts? In aftermath, interception was dumbed down to fucking cinematic sequence. Is strategical part really so much better than in aftermath (where it was practically dumbed down to minimal extent)?
Demo didn't convince me, I couldn't start the time.
Not to mention combat which I just couldn't stand, much less tactical than TB in X-com.

 

[Jinxed]

Probably because your tactical skills are as well developed as your criticism skills.

It sucked because it sucked.

Care to list your specific complains about combat? Also the things it got right, or at least better than previous games?

I found the combat to be incredibly shallow. You see, I use tactics in games like SS and JA2 because on high difficulties (more so in ja2) you will get destroyed on higher difficulty modes using the +forward fire technique.

What I did was exactly that throughout the new UFO games. Of course, the beggining wasn't only +forward fire, because it was tougher without weapon add ons and weak stat soldiers, but you reach a point in the game when each combat mission takes around 2 minutes to finish, and that still feels too long, and mine missions are a grief because they take twice as long (4).

I played right up the the starghosts, and by that time you run out of technology to discover (which definetly is a lot) and own pretty much the entire world.

While fundementaly the same, aftershock's combat is a big step forward from aftermath in terms of gameplay of both tactical and strategic aspects, but it's nothing we haven't seen before.

 

[Balor]

Well, if you don't feel challenged by Aftershock, and consider that it's a train of RTwP - try Brigade E5 demo on hard. Alone.
If that will not challendge you... well... I know people that did exactly that, but anyway - I'd bow down to you, oh tactical God.
Which is much more that I'd do to real God, btw .

 

[Fresh]

Probably because your tactical skills are as well developed as your criticism skills.

It sucked because it sucked.

Care to list your specific complains about combat? Also the things it got right, or at least better than previous games?

I found the combat to be incredibly shallow. You see, I use tactics in games like SS and JA2 because on high difficulties (more so in ja2) you will get destroyed on higher difficulty modes using the +forward fire technique.

What I did was exactly that throughout the new UFO games. Of course, the beggining wasn't only +forward fire, because it was tougher without weapon add ons and weak stat soldiers, but you reach a point in the game when each combat mission takes around 2 minutes to finish, and that still feels too long, and mine missions are a grief because they take twice as long (4).

I played right up the the starghosts, and by that time you run out of technology to discover (which definetly is a lot) and own pretty much the entire world.

While fundementaly the same, aftershock's combat is a big step forward from aftermath in terms of gameplay of both tactical and strategic aspects, but it's nothing we haven't seen before.

+forward fire technique? Is there anywhere I can read up on my lacking strategy skills/lingo?

 

[Balor]

I suppose he means 'run&gun' "tactics".
Not sure, though.

 

[Grifman]

I'm hardly a fan of the Codex hive mind, but this is why I don't like RT and prefer TB:

RT lacks immersiveness - for me. I enjoy "taking" each shot my squad members fire. Think about what goes into taking a shot in JA2. I choose for each team member:

1) The target
2) Whether to fire a burst or aimed shot
3) How many action points to spend to increase the accuracy of a shot
4) How many shots I wanted to try and get off in a turn (by adjusting accuracy or saving AP for other actions)
5) Whether I wanted use action points for something other than combat - to move at the beginning of a turn or save some for the end of a turn to move, to use a first aid kit, throw a breaklight or reload
6) Whether to stand, crouch, or go prone
7) I can't remember for sure but I think I could target body parts like headshots also


Most of that intricacy and decision making will be lost in RT, if not for the character I am focused on controlling then the ones I don't/can't control. That's why I hate RT. It takes the fun decisions away from me.

 

[Avé]

Aftershocks combat bores me, theres no real tactics other than

Have 2-3 kitted out snipers kneeling with line of sight everywhere

use scout to find enemy

targetted headshot - dead.

The tactical maps are TINY, the battles are TINY(fighting 5 enemies at once is a special event ), the only thing keeping me playing is research and resources, + finishing it so I can say with finality that the game is shite(at least aftermaths combat could be fun at times, aftershocks is never anything but dismal)

ps, Apocalypse is still the best x-com :D